


tomorrow never comes

by sansbanshees



Series: know that what we had was real [4]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, F/M, Kid Fic, Post Trespasser, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 14:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7225426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansbanshees/pseuds/sansbanshees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It seems fitting that their last kiss should resemble their first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tomorrow never comes

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt: kiss in the rain
> 
> It, uh, got away from me a little.

Three years.

It has been three years since Evelyn has seen his face or heard his voice, three years of running like the Void itself is after her to catch up to him, to stop him, yet she always finds herself one step behind.

No more.

This is likely as much a trap for her forces as they intend it to be for him but she cannot let the opportunity pass without seizing it. They no longer have that luxury.

The low roar of thunder rumbles overhead. The air is damp, sticky. Beads of sweat roll down the back of her neck as she crouches in the wild overgrowth near the entrance of a ruin that is said to be of interest to his people.

His people.

As if he sees them as people. As if he sees _any_ of them as people. He may claim to now, the same way he claims to love her, and she might have believed him if not for his refusal to stop, to wait, or even to fully explain.

It is one thing to tear down a world that the woman you claim to love resides in. That, she can wrap her mind around. One person alone is not enough in the grand scheme of things, she supposes. Were she in his position, she might make the same decision.

It is another thing entirely to forge ahead with a plan that means the death of your own living, breathing child.

Callum is his father’s son, from the tips of his ears to the cleft in his chin. He takes little from Evelyn but the strength of her scowl, the mossy green of her eyes, and the dark brown of her hair. He is as thoughtful as he is willful and there is no arguing with him when he believes that he is right. He draws. Crooked, awkward figures mostly but the older he gets, the neater his lines become. The questions she attributes to his age, but he is a curious thing and every answer he is given is turned this way and that, poked and prodded until he is satisfied of its merit.

There is nothing Evelyn will not do to keep him safe.

Her gaze sharpens at the signal from Cassandra in the trees across the overgrown path. She slowly rises to her feet.

Three years to prepare and Evelyn is nowhere near ready for the solitary hooded figure that approaches. It’s him. She would know that stride anywhere. What troubles her is the lack of anyone else in his company.

It has trap written all over it.

The sudden weight of Dorian’s hand on her shoulder is all that keeps her in place. Trap or not, she must wait. They need Solas to open the doors to these ruins because they cannot. If capturing him fails, there may be something within of value to him, something they can race to get to before he does, but they cannot fall back on that if he is not allowed to open the doors first.

Solas stills in front of them, his gaze cast ahead. The rain begins with a roll of thunder as Evelyn watches him, drops of water beading in her hair and dotting across her face as she forces herself to keep still. It starts falling in earnest when he lifts his hand, thin wisps of energy winding out from his fingers through a sudden downpour. Stone scrapes against stone. The doors open.

She glances down at the rune Dorian holds, designed by Dagna specifically for Solas’ capture. It’s primed. It has been primed for hours. None of them are willing to risk losing him to something as avoidable as a delayed start. If it works it will paralyze him, lock him in stasis exactly as he is in this moment. Thoughts, breath, and heartbeat all paused until they choose to release him.

If they choose to release him.

She already knows that they won’t. No one has said it outright, but they don’t have to. The Inquisition’s remnants and newfound allies will never let him go because he will always be a danger. He will be locked away as Corypheus was if he cannot be killed outright—and didn’t _that_ work out well for everyone, caging a being whose power they could not begin to understand?

Evelyn has her own set of issues with the goal of this plan, but she can hardly think of a better solution. It isn’t as though they can simply talk him into another course of action. She tried that already.

There is no arguing with him when he believes that he is right.

Solas turns, his eyes searching the trees she is obscured in with Dorian and the others, a glamour in place to shield them from view.

His eyes lock on hers.

It is not chance. It is not coincidence. He looks at her, and his eyes immediately soften with affection and regret. He knew they were there from the start.

She returns the look with a despairing smile, blinking away the rain beating at her eyes.

She reaches blindly for Dorian to stop him. “Wait—” But he has already stepped forward, already drawn his arm back to throw. “Dorian, he _sees_ —”

Too late.

Thunder crashes in the sky above them. The rune hits the ground and sparks, cracks, a rush of energy flooding out and racing up to encompass its target.

Solas’ eyes flash, somber grey drowned out by a bright and brilliant blue. The energy meant to cage him halts without so much as a gesture on his part.

Evelyn does not dare to even breathe.

When the magic explodes outward, cutting through the rain in a shock wave away from him—towards _them_ —there is nothing they can do. There is not even time enough to react.

In hindsight, they really should have anticipated—

* * *

The rain has slowed to a steady drizzle.

Evelyn blinks.

There is someone in front of her. A hand slowly draws away from her face, warm fingertips brushing across her cheek.

She tilts her head back, the muscles in her neck stiff and aching. How much time has passed?

The rest of her is not faring much better. It is all she can do to remain upright. The hands that move to grip her shoulders and steady her are appreciated more than she will allow herself to admit.

She looks up, greeting Solas with a weary smile. “Fancy meeting you here.”

He does not smile, exactly, but it is a near thing. “Likewise.”

He gazes at her with studious focus in the moment that follows, as if he is learning her all over again, taking in every faint new line, every thread of gray winding through her hair, replacing an old memory with something new.

Whatever his thoughts on the changes, he keeps them to himself.

“You have been betrayed.” He sounds vaguely apologetic.

Evelyn snorts. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I have also been betrayed.” And yet he does not seem surprised by it.

“Really?” She feints at sympathy. “Poor you.”

His only reaction is a shake of his head, a familiar fond exasperation in his eyes.

Some things never change.

This would be so much easier if she could bring herself to hate him.

“Sit,” he says, helping her to the muddy ground.

She does not go gracefully, wincing at the numbness abating to skitters of pins and needles in uncooperative limbs. Solas kneels in front of her, hunching over to work the feeling back into one of her legs as she clenches and unclenches her hand, rotates and stretches her arm to do the same. The prosthetic arm hangs like a dead weight for now, the runes for mobility set within it dispelled by the blast.

Later, she might look back on this and be angry at herself for letting him do this. It’s a weakness she should not be indulging in, no matter how natural it feels. How easy it is to let herself.

“You should have left me with the others.” It’s not quite an accusation. She looks up, tension gathering in her jaw. “Why didn’t you?”

Solas stills. “You know why.”

She does. She also wants to hear him say it. She wants to hear him say a lot of things, and not only for the satisfaction of it. “Tell me anyway.”

“It should take you a day to reach your arcanist,” he says, as if she does not already know that. He shifts to start on her other leg. “Another to bring her here and free the others. That is my head start.”

“Liar.” As if he needs a head start. As if he couldn’t have had all the head start he wanted by leaving her as she was. “Just say it.”

“You underestimate how difficult it is to leave you.”

It surprises her, how readily he answers this time.

“Is it?” She cannot help the hurt in her voice. Of all the issues at hand, this is hardly his most heinous offense. It should not matter. It shouldn’t. But it does. “You do it often enough, I think it should come easy by now.”

If he has an argument, he does not use it. He does not say anything. He simply looks at her, and she looks back, refusing to stand down. Not this time. Never again. The last time they saw each other, she had more pressing concerns. She still does, but there is less immediacy to them now. There is no magical mark trying to eat her alive, for a start. It’s gone, along with the lower half of her arm.

“Vhenan.” Her breath catches at the use of an endearment she has not heard since that day in the crossroads. “Someone needs you. I would not keep you from him.”

This is not the first time they’ve spoken of Callum but even now she is wary of it, of using him like ammunition. Perhaps she shouldn’t be. Perhaps there is no blow too low with the world at stake.

“I know you’ve met him,” she says. At Solas’s look of surprise, she cannot help but laugh. “What, you think a four year old isn’t going to tell someone about the giant wolf in his dreams, nudging him around the Fade?”

“Some places are more interesting than others.” It’s as good as an admission and backed by an unspoken apology. His inability to simply say things will never cease to amaze her. “I meant only to steer him towards opportunities to learn something.”

“Good. Someone should. My dreams aren’t… They’re different now.” Evelyn can impart all the lessons she likes in the waking world, but the Fade is as it was to her before the breach. She can do little but experience it without the focus the anchor provided. “I’m just there for the ride anymore, but Callum, I think he’s like you. The way he talks, it seems like he can do more there than most.”

The relief of being able to share that with someone who understands is immeasurable. She has considered discussing it with Dorian, with Vivienne—Maker, with _Cullen_ —but none of them feel right.

None of them are his father.

And she has always been able to talk to Solas. Even now, it is easier than it has any right to be.

“Yes.” There is wonder in his voice, and a quiet sort of pride. “I admit, I wondered if… I thought he might be more like you.” He smiles, and everything about it is raw, aching happiness. “He looks like you.”

“Me? Are you blind?” She shakes her head with a laugh. “Look in a mirror some time. You’ve only got a million of them. He looks like _you_.” She reaches up and takes his chin in hand without a thought for why she shouldn’t, her thumb pressing pointedly at the cleft, but it is far from the only resemblance.

His nose. His lips. The shape of his eyes and the distance between them. There is so much of Solas in Callum’s little face that it breaks her heart sometimes to look at him, but never for long. They are features that she loves in both faces that bear them.

Solas reaches up and curls his hand around hers in a loose hold. “He has your eyes.” He lifts her hand to his lips and presses a kiss to her palm. “Your hands. Your stubborn streak.” And then he chuckles quietly. “He does not appreciate being steered away from where he wishes to go.”

“Right. Mine. Because you’re so receptive to being led down a different path.” But she can picture it, has dealt with it herself, particularly when it comes time to retire for the night. He does not go peacefully, her son. Their son. Not for his mother, not for a strange wolf in the Fade, not for anyone. “You might try distraction next time.”

“Such as?”

“Let him ride you, you can take him wherever you like.” She cannot help but smile at the image her mind supplies for the suggestion. “I doubt he’d argue.”

He must find appeal in the idea as well. His smile is small, but plain. “I will keep it in mind.”

“Does he know?” She doubts that he does. Evelyn has told Callum very little of his father, but the chance exists that Solas has shared what she has not and she needs to know for certain. “Have you—spoken to him? Told him who you are?”

“No.” Solas’s answer is hardly a surprise. Discovering who he is, what he is capable of, it decimated her confidence in her knowledge of him, but this—she was all but certain of this. “I could not place such a burden on him. Or you. He knows only a creature within the confines of the Fade, nothing more.”

It's not fair. It isn't. Callum deserves more than that.

They all deserve so much more than this.

“Don’t tell him.” Perhaps that is not fair of her to expect, but nothing about any of this is fair. “Please. Not if you’re still—”

“Of course.” It is the most hollow, pained agreement that she has ever heard, as if it is the last thing in the world that he wants to agree to. 

She feels a pang of sympathy, but he has no one to blame but himself. She can tell him that he does not have to, that he can make a different choice, take a different path, but it will not do either of them any good. He already knows. He is choosing not to.

This would be so much easier if she did not care anymore.

A low roll of thunder unfurls in the distance. Another storm on its way in. If she wants to stay ahead of it, she cannot linger here much longer.

She considers staying, waiting out the storm and stalling the inevitable. He won't leave until she does—he has business here, after all—and this could be the last time they see each other. The last time they speak as themselves and not the figures they must make themselves into again tomorrow.

“I have to go,” she says.

She is already long past the point of indulgence.

Solas stands and offers his hand to help her do the same. She takes it, accepting his help one last time. It is the practical thing to do when her legs are still weak from the paralysis she was caught in.

“You saw the creek on your way in?” At her nod, he continues. “Go back to it. Follow it north and you will find my horse.”

She breathes a quiet laugh, only a little disbelieving. “Won’t you need it for your head start?”

“I have other means of travel,” he says. He shrugs off his cloak as the rain picks up and drapes it around her shoulders before lifting the hood up to cover her head. “You need it more.”

It is not until she is enveloped in his borrowed warmth that she realizes how cold she was. She nearly thanks him—there is no reason not to, stubborn pride aside, and even that has long since fled—but something catches her eye as he lowers his arms and moves to the side.

Knotted around his wrist is a thin black ribbon. It is old and well worn, faded and fraying, the look of something that has not been taken off for years. It is remarkably similar to the ones she still favors to tie back her hair.

She does not think. If she lets herself think, she will come up with one of the many compelling reasons not to do what she is about to do.

She reaches up and turns his face towards hers. He has but a moment to look surprised before she stretches up on the tips of her toes to kiss him as the rain begins in earnest once more.

It seems fitting that their last kiss should resemble their first, but this time he does not hesitate to kiss her in return. This time he holds her as close as she holds him. This time he whispers words that she has long since learned the meaning of between the press of their lips.

Love.

Heart.

Home.

They are just as true for her.

Evelyn allows herself a moment, one single moment to close her eyes and breathe him in.

 _Come home_ , she wants to say. _It isn’t supposed to be like this._

She steps out of his arms.

“Goodbye,” she says instead.

She turns away and disappears into the forest. She does not look back.

Someone needs her. She will not keep him waiting.


End file.
